fferent kind. Third, Browning is careless in his English, and
frequently clips his speech, giving us a series of ejaculations. As we do
not quite understand his processes of thought, we must stop between the
ejaculations to trace out the connections. Fourth, Browning's, allusions
are often far-fetched, referring to some odd scrap of information which he
has picked up in his wide reading, and the ordinary reader finds it
difficult to trace and understand them. Finally, Browning wrote too much
and revised too Little. The time which he should have given to making one
thought clear was used in expressing other thoughts that flitted through
his head like a flock of swallows. His field was the individual soul, never
exactly alike in any two men, and he sought to express the hidden motives
and principles which govern individual action. In this field he is like a
miner delving underground, sending up masses of mingled earth and ore; and
the reader must sift all this material to separate the gold from the dross.

Here, certainly, are sufficient reasons for Browning's obscurity; and we
must add the word that the fault seems unpardonable, for the simple reason
that Browning shows himself capable, at times, of writing directly,
melodiously, and with noble simplicity.

So much for the faults, which must be faced and overlooked before one finds
the treasure that is hidden in Browning's poetry. Of all the poets in our
literature, no other is so completely, so consciously, so magnificently a
teacher of men. He feels his mission of faith and courage in a world of
doubt and timidity. For thirty years he faced indifference or ridicule,
working bravely and cheerfully the while, until he made the world recognize
and follow him. The spirit of his whole life is well expressed in his
_Paracelsus_, written when he was only twenty-two years old:

I see my way as birds their trackless way.
I shall arrive,--what time, what circuit first,
I ask not; but unless God send his hail
Or blinding fire-balls, sleet or stifling snow,
In some time, his good time, I shall arrive;
He guides me and the bird. In his good time.

He is not, like so many others, an entertaining poet. One cannot read him
after dinner, or when settled in a comfortable easy-chair. One must sit up,
and think, and be alert when he reads Browning. If we accept these
conditions, we shall probably find that Browning is the most stimulating
poet in our language. H